


Deliver Me from Thy Sweetness

by thelogicoftaste



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Daddy!Derek, DeliveryBoy!Stiles, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2014-10-24
Packaged: 2018-02-22 09:12:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2502398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelogicoftaste/pseuds/thelogicoftaste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Shift changes,” Stiles explains. “I’m your new delivery boy. See, I got the hat,” he points, “the clipboard,” he points, “and the truck.”</p><p>“What about my groceries?” Derek asks with a raise of his brows. “You got those?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deliver Me from Thy Sweetness

**Author's Note:**

> Ava is three.

-

Ava _loves_ bath time.

She’ll purse her lips in uncontained enthusiasm when it’s time, shed her clothes quickly off her back and on to the floor, continually shrug her shoulders in excitement.

And this is something that Derek didn't see coming, _at all_. On the contrary, in fact, he’d been warned – several, _several_ times – to prepare for the carnage that was baby bath time.

He, himself, had been a notorious fussy baby and he’d hated being anywhere near tepid, warm water more than he hated green colored, bland tasting vegetables. 

But Ava – well, she takes to water like a springtime duck; all baby laughs and small palms making waves and ripples over the surface of the bathwater. She’s a happy girl, paddling her way from one side of the tub to the other on her belly, re-enacting dramatic plays with her yellow ducks, (badly) singing along to the radio.

Derek is trying to wash her hair, sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he cups palm-full after palm-full of warm water to pour over her head.

But he indulges her, spiking up the long brown tendrils of her hair high on her head with shampoo, makes lots of bubbles in the bath so she can scoop it up and smother it over the bottom half of her face. 

"I'm like you, Daddy," Ava laughs, voice echoing back from the tiles on the wall, grin bright on her face. Then she catches sight of herself in the mirror, foam beard and all, and she gasps, horrified, "I look like Santa!" 

Derek only laughs, using the tips of his fingers to massage the shampoo in her hair. He’d ask for her to stay still, but he knows that’s a lost cause; instead, Ava twists and turns where she’s sitting, hunting around for large clusters of bubbles to scoop up.

She places them strategically over her mouth and chin, large sections of it dripping down her neck.

“Daddy,” she beseeches, tilting her head up, voice slightly muffled as Derek wipes a thumb across her mouth – preventing her from swallowing the bubbles. “How do I look?”

Derek pretends to consider, tilting her head this way and that, muttering under his breath, brows furrowed tight in deliberation.

“Beautiful,” he finally tells her, with a firm nod, “and strong. The fairest of them all.”

“Of ‘em _all?”_

He hums in confirmation, returning her bright grin with a small, pleased smile.

Ava gathers two more handfuls of bubble soap and sits up on her knees. “You too,” she says, leaning forward to rub the bubbles in Derek’s stubble. It’s far too late for him to jerk back, so he just kneels there whilst his daughter seriously rubs bath foam onto his cheeks.

“There,” Ava says, with a slight nod, once she’s finished. “All better now.”

Derek's heart flutters at the soft look in Ava's eyes and he melts - just totally and completely melts, shoulders relaxing, mouth gentling into a smile and he could not possible love her more than he already does. 

He's about to reply - with something disgustingly sentimental, probably - when there are three sharp knocks on the door. 

Derek startles, hands slapping at the water in Ava's bath. It’s two in the afternoon already?

He grabs a towel and picks up his baby, before rushing down the stairs, water dripping all over his clothes. 

He can't open the door whilst he has Ava in his arms - he doesn't want to expose her to the cool air of the outdoors when she's just been in a bath - so he changes trajectory into the living room. 

He sits her on the couch just as another set of knocks reverberate through the front hall. 

"Don't move," he tells Ava, who blinks owlishly up at him, shampoo dropping from her faux-hawk to her bare shoulder. He arranges the towel better and kisses her nose before darting off to the door. 

He opens the door with far more vitriol than is probably needed. 

And there's a kid.

It’s a young man. 

A _youth_.

He’s got a clipboard in his hands, a grey hoody over his shoulders, and brown hair caught in a backwards dark-green cap. The guy is obnoxiously popping gum in his mouth as he stares over his shoulder and down the street, a little furrow between his brows. 

Derek would have probably slammed the door in the kid’s face had it not been for the truck parked on the curb just outside his driveway, painted in the same dark green color as the kid’s cap – and the grocery store’s logo emblazoned on the side.

Derek clears his throat, and the kid whips around, big brown eyes opening wider as his gaze falls on Derek, mouth dropping open as he stares.

Derek fights the urge to roll his eyes, huffs a gruff, “Yes?”

The kid’s mouth snaps shut and he pulls his shoulders straight, clamping down on a smile.

Derek narrows his eyes suspiciously.

“Uh,” the kid begins, voice both lower and rougher than Derek expected. “Mr. Hale, right?”

“Derek,” Derek corrects automatically. ‘Mr. Hale’ was always his father, and doesn’t that hurt like a bitch to remember.

“Oh,” the kid nods, grabbing a pen out of the back pocket of his jeans. He scribbles something on the sheet clamped to the clipboard, back curving oddly as he contorts himself to settle the clipboard on his knee. He stands up straight when he’s finished, eyes straying to the lower half of Derek’s face, before the kid apparently realizes what he’s doing and he snaps his eyes back to Derek’s. “I’m Stiles.”

Derek takes his hand, shakes it firmly.

“Right,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “ _Stiles._ What are you doing here?”

“I’m your delivery boy,” Stiles says, he rocks on the balls of his feet, offering Derek a smile.

“I already have a delivery boy,” Derek retorts. He's got to be honest with himself here, he's really struggling not to shake his fist at this kid and yell,  _"This is private property, get off my lawn!"_

But he already _has_ a delivery boy. Isaac’s very tall and very annoying (and not nearly as appealing as this one seems to be) - but he’s been Derek’s delivery boy for nigh on a year now and somehow, it works.

“Shift changes,” Stiles explains. “I’m your _new_ delivery boy. See, I got the hat,” he points, “the clipboard,” he points, “and the truck.”

“What about my groceries?” Derek asks with a raise of his brows. “You got those?”

Stiles lets out a snort of laughter, grinning at Derek with a knowing look. He’s got very small, very straight teeth – Derek notes. It’s cute. _Stiles_ is cute.

Or he would be, if Derek was into robbing the cradle.

_God-dammit._

Derek rolls his eyes at himself, hoping the kid hasn’t noticed Derek’s not-so-subtle checking of how well he fits into his uniform polo shirt.

But, it seems, he needn’t have worried because Stiles isn’t even looking at Derek. He’s staring at the inside of his house, head moving slowly from one side to the other as he tracks the movement of something – face contorted in both confusion and bewilderment.

“Hey,” Derek says, snapping his fingers in front of Stiles’ pretty eyes. “What is it?”

“Uh,” Stiles says, gripping his clipboard tightly, he purses his lips. “You – uh. You have a streaker?”

“I- What?” Derek balks.

Stiles winces, bringing his hand up to indicate, “A tiny one.”

 _“What?”_ Derek repeats sharply, whipping around.

Indeed, there’s Ava. His darling, sweet little Ava; she’s sprinting across the living room - naked as the day she was born.

“Shit,” Derek swears, leaving Stiles gaping after him at the front door.

Ava weaves around the couch, feet slapping on the tiles of the living-room floor as she leaves a trail of shampoo and bath gel in her wake, squealing with uncontained happiness.

Derek, in a rather undignified manner, can’t seem to get a hold of her, fingers sliding though the slippery residue on her arms and shoulders.

On the second loop around the couch, Derek grabs the towel from where she’d evidently thrown it over the back, and drops it over her head. He grabs her immediately, swaddling her even as she’s working to uncover her face.

He wraps her up tight. And, despite her over-eager squirming, she ends up wrapped like a burrito. Derek holds her aloft – a red-cheeked, giggling, baby-girl burrito.

“I guess that’s the excitement over?” comes Stiles’ voice from the doorway. He’s standing completely unselfconsciously, like he gets invited over to Derek’s house all the time. “Huh,” Stiles muses, tongue poking into his cheek as he surveys Derek and Ava. “Guess that explains the foam beard.”

God-fucking- _dammit_ , Derek thinks.

-

When he comes back down, later, with a fully dressed Ava and no foam beard to speak of, Derek finds Stiles sitting at the counter as he left him.

There are four green crates, full of the groceries Derek ordered, neatly stacked on the floor beside him.

Derek sets Ava on the counter in front of him and she immediately turns on her butt to peer at him.

Stiles looks up from his form-filling and smiles easily at her, twiddling his long fingers in an awkward wave.

She is not impressed; her eyes narrow a little as she continues to stare.

“Ava,” Derek chides gently, touching her back. “Be nice.”

She continues to stare at Stiles, even as Derek begins to unpack the first crate.

“What’s your name?” Ava asks.

“Stiles.”

_“Stiles?”_

“Yeah,” Stiles says.

“Your mommy called you _Stiles?”_ she asks with a delicate wrinkle of her nose.

“Your mommy called you _Ava?”_ Stiles jokes back.

“Auntie Cora called me Ava,” she corrects proudly. “Daddy was too busy cryin’.”

“Is that so?” Stiles asks, throwing Derek a sly grin.

“’S what Auntie Laura always says,” Ava continues, completely oblivious to Derek’s face of shame.

“Stiles is a nickname,” Stiles tells her. At the look of confusion on her face, he laughs, “Trust me, kid, I _know_. But it’s a thousand times better than my real name.” 

Ava freezes, eyes widening.

“ _Daddy_ ,” she yells, flapping her hand at Derek, almost hyperventilating. “Daddy! Stiles doesn’t got his real name!”

“Use,” Derek corrects absent-mindedly, placing cans of re-fried beans in the cupboard.

“He doesn’t got _use_ his real name,” she frantically echoes.

Derek sighs.

“I know, sweetheart, I heard,” he tells her. “Just like a superhero, huh?”

“Wow,” she says, turning her big doe eyes back on Stiles.

Stiles leans in, conspiratorially whispers, “You never know, I might be a _real_ superhero.”

And that’s it.

That’s all it takes.

Ava is a total goner on Stiles.

Derek could point out her heart eyes and it wouldn’t even be an exaggeration.

She trails around Stiles like a puppy each and every single time he comes over the next few weeks, bumping into his calves in her haste to get her questions answered.

_(“Can you fly, Stiles?”_

_“D’you put the baddies on time-out, Stiles?”_

_“Stiles, can you tell Miss America that she’s my favouritest ever?”)_

And Stiles bustles around the kitchen, red-cheeked and sheepish over Ava’s fawning, he answers the questions as best he can, until he gets flustered and Derek has to save him.

“Ava,” Derek says, kneeling down to her. “Darling. Light of my life, can you stop the questioning and go park your tush on the couch for me, please?"

“But _daddy_ ,” she whines.

“But nothing,” Derek replies, turning her around and gently prodding her in the right direction.

He stands once she disappears into the living room, turning around to find Stiles with a soft smile on his face.

“You’re really great with her,” he tells Derek. “She’s such an awesome kid.”

“Thanks,” Derek replies, eyes darting away from Stiles. “She really is.”

He doesn’t know what else to say, because Stiles is still looking at him with that stupidly tender expression, and it bubbles want in Derek’s belly.

When Stiles is jogging down the front steps to his truck, Ava and Derek send him off. Ava’s arm tight around Derek’s neck, the other waving wildly.

“Bye, Stiles,” she yells out after him. “See you tomorrow.”

“Next week,” Derek says.

“Next _we-eek_!” Ava dutifully corrects.

-

“Oh, my gosh,” Ava gasps; loud and shaky enough that is has Derek dashing from the living room to the kitchen in a heartbeat. “Oh. My. _Gosh._ ”

She’s kneeling on the counter, Stiles’ wrist gripped in between her two small hands, nose practically touching the inked skin, but she snaps up to look at Derek with wide eyes.

“Daddy, look,” she thrusts Stiles’ wrist in Derek’s direction, Stiles lurching forward behind her. “ _Look._ ”

Derek already knows it’s a tattoo, he’d spied the band-aid that Stiles usually has over it, but he takes a peek anyway.

In large block letters it proclaims ‘FUCK THE FONZ’ and beneath it, in smaller printed letters are the words ‘he thinks he’s fucking cooler than me’.

And Derek. Derek doesn’t _get_ it.

He peers curiously up at Stiles – the very red-faced, embarrassed Stiles.

“Oh my gosh,” Ava croons.

Derek lifts an eyebrow in question.

“It’s a thing,” Stiles defends hotly. “With my buddy, my best friend. It’s totally a thing.”

“Daddy, what does it say?” Ava asks.

“Eat your vegetables and you can grow wings,” Derek tells her.

“ _Oh_ _my_ _gosh_ ,” she whispers, looking like Derek’s just given her the answers to the mysteries of life, and she sets off – to look for some vegetables, presumably.

-

Later, when they’re curled up around each other, Looney Tunes playing on the TV, Ava’s head on his chest, she asks, “Daddy, can I have one?”

“Have one what, kiddo?”

“The thing Stiles got put on his wrist.”

“The tattoo?”

“Tattoo,” Ava sighs wistfully.

“Not until you’re sixty-four.”

“But that’s _forever_ away,” Ava complains.

“Exactly,” Derek mutters.

-

The next time Stiles comes around, however, Ava spends half an hour detailing to him what each and every one of her temporary stick-on tattoos mean.

-

So, Derek and Stiles.

That's a thing that happens.

Or, it’s a thing that _could_ happen if Derek weren’t such a weakling.  

They’ve been dancing around each other for quite a while. It’s been months since Stiles first showed up at Derek’s door – by now, he knows the names and intricate lives of Stiles’ best friends, the college course he’s taking, the diet he force-feeds his father and so many other things that Derek holds covetously to his chest.

They’re in Derek’s kitchen – just milling about. Derek is sure that Stiles is supposed to be running another delivery job, but he hasn’t questioned it for the past few months, and he isn’t about to start now.

Conversely, Stiles has been gradually shuffling closer to Derek the longer they’ve continued their current conversation.

Derek tries to ignore it, even when Stiles is hovering over his shoulder. He tries to ignore the way he smells – like seawater and citrus, peaches and cedar wood – and the turn of his nose, the softness of his hair.

“Derek?”

He turns, finding himself standing almost chest-to-chest with Stiles. They’re pretty much the same height, barely an inch between them and he’s taller – yet he feels miniscule under Stiles’ sharp gaze.

“Yeah?” Derek asks, voice rougher than he intended it to be.

“Are you ever going to ask me out?”

“That’s-,” Derek doesn’t know what to say. “You’re _very_ forward.”

“Doesn’t stop you from checking me out,” Stiles retorts, brazen smile lighting up his features. “Uh huh, big guy. I see you.”

Stiles takes another step forward, “So how about it?”

Derek straightens his shoulders, and their chests are pressed close together, their mouths hovering above each other’s.

“Have dinner with me, Stiles?” Derek asks, quietly, lips just barely brushing against Stiles’.

Stiles rolls his eyes as Derek slides his arm around his trim waist, pulling them closer together. “Took you long enough.”

“You’ve got a perfectly working mouth, Stiles,” Derek tells him. “You could have asked me yourself."

“I’ll show you how good my mouth is later on, big guy,” Stiles says, waggling his eyebrows.

“Shut up.”

“Where’s Ava?” Stiles asks, a split second before his gaze drops down to Derek’s mouth.

“Passed out in front of the Telletubies.”

Stiles swallows tightly, hands fisting in Derek’s shirt. “Can I kiss you?”

But Derek beats him to it. He presses his lips to Stiles’ own, captures that soft pink mouth and slides his tongue alongside Stiles’ – kisses the laughter right out of him.

-

Ava stumbles out of the living room three hours later, bleary eyed and awkward. One leg of her trousers is hiked up to her knee, her is hair flattened on one side, frizzing out on the other, and she’s grabbing General Fuzzleworts III (leader of 12th Battalion, Northeast Division with a speciality in dealing with bedwetting) by the leg – making him trail upside down behind her.

Stiles and Derek have been making out for hours, only just barely pausing in between to have long conversations about everything and nothing.

Stiles’ lips are red and a little swollen, and he’s flushed everywhere. Derek feels ridiculously proud of his effect on him. They’re twinned around each other, Stiles surreptitiously unwrapping his leg from around Derek’s waist and back down to the floor.

They look like deer in headlights - very awkward, very _guilty_ deer.

“Um,” Ava says, upon seeing the two of them. Her eyes narrow on the (very limited) amount of space between them before her eyes widen. _“Oh. My. Gosh!”_

-

**Author's Note:**

> Stiles' tattoo actually is a [thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTmiSn23Px4).


End file.
